Food for the journey: 10 ideas to delight your travelling companions

Say goodbye to the soggy sandwich! It’s easy to serve up a delectable dish while en route—and here are some recipes to get you started.

Picnics, as a planned activity, are one of our favourite ways to eat when the weather gets hot. But if we’re travelling, we want more than the service station offerings of flabby, uninspiring, mass-produced sandwiches and pasties, topped with fizzy drinks and melting chocolate.

Here are ten recipes for food for the trip that will wow your travelling companions, and make any trip even more memorable (without making a mess in your car)!

1. Three quick vegan salad jars—nutritious make-ahead lunches

Image via Lauren Caris Cooks

Salad jars are perfect as travel food. They’re self-contained and look so appetizing, with differently coloured layers of leaves, pulses, grains, nuts and whatever else you wish to include. This delightful guide to three different vegan pots will get you started.

2. Leftover spaghetti carbonara frittata

Image via Fuss Free Flavours

Frittatas are perfect when on the move. Again, they’re self-contained and easy to eat, and this one is a double-benefit dish: not only simple to make, but also uses up leftover cooked spaghetti. I particularly like the way the spaghetti looks on the bottom of the frittata. This is one of our favourite pasta dishes, and perfect for that night-before-going-away, packing-frenzy, no-time-to-cook supper.

3. Homemade trail mix: nutty + healthy

Image via Midlife Croissant

For those who haven’t come across it, trail mix is and Americanism for a mixture of nuts, seeds and dried fruit that can be easily eaten while hiking. It’s also perfect for the modern version of hiking: those long-distance driving spells designed to get you to your destination with minimum downtime. You can add all sorts of things, but this guide gets you off to a great start with a mix that looks like a handful of jewels.

4. Chorizo Scotch eggs

Image via The Crafty Larder

Something a bit more traditional, Scotch eggs were invented as the perfect travelling food by Fortnum and Masons in 1738. Boiled eggs surrounded by sausage meat and breadcrumbs, then deep fried or baked isn’t too tricky, and again the difference between the homemade—especially these chorizo-based eggs—and mass-produced is huge.

5. Crunchy granola snack bites

Image via Two Healthy Kitchens

These energy balls are a great quick win, requiring no cooking: simply mix the ingredients, form into small balls and refrigerate. While they might not have wow-factor looks, they’re tasty, easy to eat and packed with energy.

6. Savoury sausage, apple-sage hand pies

Image via What A Girl Eats

I would call these a pasty: a mixture of meat and vegetables encased in a folded-over pastry case. These have been made using large a gyoza-type press: cover the press with a circle of pastry, add the filling and then fold it over and it seals it all together. If you don’t have a press, it’s not a problem: you can simply make the pasties by hand and crimp them shut the traditional way.

7. Marbled tea eggs

Image via Red House Spice

Here’s a recipe that wins in terms of looks. Tea eggs are hard-boiled eggs that are soaked in a liquid that’s darkened and flavoured with tea, soy sauce and spices. This adds flavour to the eggs and—if you crack (but not peel) the eggs before soaking—they have a beautiful marbled effect too.

8. Blueberry and orange cold-brew iced green tea

Image via Fuss Free Flavours

Something other than cans of sticky, sugar-filled fizzy drinks is a welcome change on a trip. We drink a lot of cold-brewed green tea in summer; it’s easy to make, delicious and so refreshing. Here’s a recipe to get you started—before you know it, they’ll be a jug brewing in your fridge all the time.

9. Golden turmeric cracker

Image via Elephantastic Vegan

These beautiful crackers will add a real dash of golden colour to any meal. Crispy and crunchy, they might not be the best thing for eating on the move, but on long journeys it’s a good idea to stop for a stretch and change drivers. Plan a lunchtime pause somewhere picturesque to get your trip off to a great start, or end it on a high note.

10. Grapefruit gummies

Image via Raia’s Recipes

These homemade soft sweets are the exact opposite: easy to snack on while on the move and crumb-free. However, like the turmeric crackers, they’re really tasty and show the benefits of making things yourself, especially as they use water kefir for its probiotic benefits.

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